We're Saying It: Inslee Wins

Matt Barreto of the Washington Poll is making projections in the "too close to call" state races based on the returns from all Washington State counties so far. Using the methodology discussed on Slog the other day, Barreto now projects that R-74 will be approved, 52.2 to 47.8, and Inslee will prevail over McKenna by a four percent margin.

The minute King County dropped its election results was the minute Republican Rob McKenna's gubernatorial ambitions came to an end. McKenna needed at least 40 percent of the vote in Washington's most populous county to win statewide. He got 37 percent. Statewide he trails by about three points.

Like dozens of Republican statewide candidates before him, King County would be McKenna's Waterloo.

McKenna's "secret sauce" (to steal a phrase from Democrat Jay Inslee) had always been his electoral track record in King County, where he won more than half the vote during his last run for attorney general. McKenna's strategy was to convince enough Seattle and suburban voters that he was a pro-choice/pro-education "different kind of" Republican.

Not enough King County voters bought it.

Nobody is likely to call this election for days, but everybody knows it's really over, from the jubilant crowd of Democrats at Seattle's Westin Hotel to the once-again-disappointed Republicans milling about the Bellevue Hilton. A year ago, anybody who knew anything about state politics knew that this was McKenna's race to lose. And lose he did.

And with self-entitled pretty boy Reagan Dunn losing his race for attorney general, Republican prospects look bleaker than ever. McKenna and Dunn were the Republican bench—all of it. If they couldn't pass the critical 40 percent threshold in King County, what Republican could?